Certain intra-oral imaging systems allow a dental practitioner to generate a 3D image of a patient's mouth and display the topographical characteristics of a tooth on a computer display monitor. The 3D image may take the form of a point cloud in a coordinate system fixed in 3D space. A surface may be fitted to this point cloud to generate a topographical map of the soft and hard tissue inside the patient's mouth. Intra-oral imaging devices can use various non-ionizing radiation (e.g., ordinary light and laser radiation) to create a point cloud or surface data of a patient's dentition.
Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) involves the use of a rotating CBCT scanner gantry combined with algorithms or software on an image processing system to generate images of teeth and surrounding bone structure and soft tissue. The CBCT scanner uses high-energy radiation (e.g., x-ray radiation) to generate 3D imagery of the patient.